BOMBS ON LONDON

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 157, 29 March 1941, Page 18

BOMBS ON LONDON

Artist’s Experiences The suffering that is being endured by peaceable non-combatants in London is illustrated in a letter received recently by Mr. H. Temple White, the Wellington musician and choirmaster, from his brother, Mr. Sydney Wales White, a London artist, who resides with his daughter Beatrice, at 153 Cromwell Road, Kensington, London. “Beatrice and I are safe and sound, though we were in the front line of the blitzkrieg in September, the first bomb of which fell opposite and shattered our front windows and doors, doing little damage,” he wrote. “The landlord immediately put in new windows and doors so that we could go on painting. A week later a huge land-mine at the back of our garden blew every door and window in the building all over the place. Beatrice and I had taken shelter in the coalcellar under the old stone staircase. It was about 11.30 p.m. AlLthe blackout curtains and devices had gone, so we could have no light and, groping in the dark, I found unknown obstacles across our exits, so we decided to wait till daylight, though we heard people being rescued from adjoining houses. “We were unhurt, though we were covered with debris and broken glass. I saved my face by instinctively putting my arm across it. Beatrice got a small splinter in her eye, but that was all. She was very brave under fire. The place was uninhabitable, so we came here. Very little damage was done to furniture and the portraits on the walls still hung there and looked uow;n complacently as if nothing had happened. j “We hurriedly collected a few things and 'eaught a train as two bombs fell on the station. Our train got away rather late. A week after I received a telegram,/House hit again, come at once.’ Beatrice and I left our work on the farm, walked two miles to a bus which caught a train, got to town, just at blackout when air-raids had begun. So we went to shelter in the tube for the night, a delightful experience for everyone was so cheerful and anxious to do all they could for each other with no distinction of class. The Londoners are magnificent. We found a large bomb had made a crater in front of our front door, bursting a gas main. Still no harm to the pictures. I was told the house would have to come down, but the surveyor says ‘no.’ So in time we may get back, but it is no good restoring till •he blitzkrieg dies down.”